In The Spotlight: Jerry Wu
Jerry is a 13-year-old Taiwanese boy who is now studying in a junior high school in Taipei. Since he is Sophie's younger brother, she has lived with him from the time he was born, and has noticed his difference in his social skills, emotion expressing and thinking comparing to his peers.
When he first was born, he was a premature (36 weeks) therefore he lived in an incubator for 1 week. He doesn't like to be touched since he was a baby.
Like other children and teenagers with Asperger's syndrome, he is very tenacious and sticks on his habits. The hems on his socks must fit exactly to the tips of his toes, and he has to stop to adjust his socks for a long time while he is wearing his shoes. This is often the reason why he is late for school.
A message from an AS website :
http://www.wretch.cc/blog/asperger&article_id=8251830 showed that there's still another similarity on AS sufferer is that some of them would hurt themselves when they feel anxious or nervous. My brother hurt himself by scratch his skin to bleeding (same as the boy mentioned in the message), and he can't stand the protuberance on his skin. He uses pencils, scissors (or everything with an acme) and tries to dig them all out. This make his two legs covered with small wounds.
He has to suck his thumb to sleep until now even if he's a teenager. His parents had tried many ways to stop the behavior, but in vain. He needs his thumb as some people need their sleeping pills. Moreover, he even sucks his thumbs in class. Thumb sucking probably reveals his feeling of insecurity inside.
His family thought his behaviors were displays of a normal naughty boy, but after they found out his emotion development lag, they suspected he be an Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disordered (ADHD) sufferer, and his behavior seemed to fit some of the criteria of ADHD such as Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly, Often talks excessively, or Often interrupts or intrudes on others.
The crucial reason for the discovery of my brother's AS is the "resources class" in his elementary school. His teacher wasn't able to accept a child like him, and insisted he go to the "resources class". In common thoughts, "resources class" are for mentally--challenged children, and people tend to label them as "retarded, not able to adapt to normal life". First, my parents had no choice but to accept the suggestion. Nevertheless, the found that this special class is actually created for all kinds of disabled children like children with ADHD or AS. After a deep discussion with my parents, the special education teacher decided my brother take extra lessons in order to improve his social skills. They also trained his muscles because in a ball-throwing testing, they found him weaker than contemporary children, and then discovered that his muscles are less developed, which is a common syndrome of AS children.
With years of effort, Jerry's remarkable improvement was shown mainly on his relationships with his classmates. Before, he was always an outsider in the class, other boys would tease him, and having a fight is an everyday chore. Now, he has a few friends, people invite him to go out together, and he even made some friends in other class!! He said he's happier now, though some of the problems are still existing e.g. his easily- distracted, which stopped him from getting the better grades his IQ could support him to . However, his teachers and his families are confident that he will be able to elaborate his full potential someday.